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Established in 1909, the Newark Museum gradually expanded from its two-room origins to the bountiful 80 galleries of today, with a campus comprising a one-room schoolhouse, sculpture garden, and planetarium, in addition to the main museum. Traipse through one of the many ongoing exhibits such as The Glitter and The Gold: Jewelry from the Newark Museum, which displays a glinting anthology of jewelry from the early 1700s to the present, including the "Butterfly Lady" brooch from Newark’s historic jewelry industry and a collection of colonial Rolexes. The impressively curated Tibetan Collection brings to life the Himalayan territory through exhibits such as the 15 biographical, narrative paintings of Tsongkhapa–The Life of a Tibetan Visionary, and Pots of Silver and
Gold, replete with traditional Tibetan motifs of lotus buds and dragons.

Inside the pitch-black Touch Tunnel, you're completely blind. On your hands and knees, you crawl forward, relying solely on your other senses to lead you through the darkness. The tunnel is only 80 feet long, but the exit might as well be miles away. After finally emerging safe (and sighted) from the most popular exhibit at Liberty Science Center, a family could still spend four more hours at the many hands-on attractions and experiences designed to enlighten visitors about the power and fun of science.
All told, Liberty Science Center houses a dozen galleries for interactive exploration. Visitors can perform surgery on a 3D robotic simulator; tip-toe across a steel girder hovering 18 feet in the air; or even connect with more than 90 different animals, including giant fish and a family of tamarin monkeys. At I Explore, young scientists ages 2?5 learn about the world around them while launching colorful balls into the air or using a xylophone made of stone slabs. When it's time to relax, the whole family can visit the largest IMAX dome theater in the U.S., which transports onlookers from outer space to the deepest depths of the oceans and just about everywhere in between.

What's more impressive than the Lockheed A-12 Blackbird?the world's fastest spy plane? Or a guided missile submarine? Well, how about a spaceship? At the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum, visitors will find all of this amid more than two dozen authentically restored aircraft, including the British Airways Concorde, the fastest commercial aircraft to cross the Atlantic Ocean. Through exhibitions, educational programming, and the well-rounded collection of technologically groundbreaking aircraft and vessels, the nonprofit institution provides visitors of all ages with an interactive journey through history to learn about American innovation and bravery. Professional guided tours are available to enhance the experience.
The Building: the aircraft carrier Intrepid, which withstood kamikaze attacks and a torpedo strike during World War II
Size: the carrier's four decks take two to three hours to explore, unless you're visiting in an F-14 Tomcat
Eye Catcher: Inside the Space Shuttle Pavilion, the gigantic shuttle Enterprise hovers above several space-themed exhibits.
Permanent Mainstay: The American guided missile submarine Growler welcomes guests into its dining room, attack center, and torpedo room (where some of the crew also slept).
Don't Miss: The Lockheed A-12 Blackbird spy plane, the world's fastest military jet with a top speed of 2,269 mph and cameras that could shoot pictures from 80,000 feet in the air.
Hands-On Experience: Kids can climb into a helicopter and steer from an airplane's cockpit in Exploreum Hall.
Pro Tip:
Be sure to talk to the volunteers?many served aboard Intrepid or on other Navy ships.

The Hoboken Historical Museum celebrates the history, culture, architecture, and overall coolness of the Hoboken area, with 2,000 square feet of photos and artifacts located within the former Bethlehem Steel shipyard. Currently, the main gallery exhibit Surveying the World: Keuffel & Esser + Hoboken, 1870–1968, running until December 23, serves up 500 engineering instruments manufactured by the firm Keuffel & Esser from 1870 to 1968. Visitors to the exhibit can interact with a slide rule or telepathically take apart a transit instrument to discover the goblins turning the gears within. The museum also has an upper gallery, which is a venue for local artists to exhibit work about Hoboken and its environs. Previous artists include popular cityscape artist Frank Hanavan, photographer Virginia Parrott, and the fifth-grade class at Wallace Elementary School. Support the Hoboken Historical Museum with a one-year individual or family membership—both membership packages include benefits such as free admission to the museum, discounts on select museum gift-shop items, a subscription to the museum's quarterly newsletter, and free copies of the museum's Oral History Project chapbooks.

Splayed across the green lawns of historic Snug Harbor, Staten Island Children's Museum's main brick building houses a four-level wonderland of kid-friendly fun. Tykes learn about nature in exhibits such as Bugs & Other Insects, which lets explorers crawl through a human-size anthill, don shiny beetle carapaces, and sign peace treaties with hissing cockroaches. Portia's Playhouse puts visitors in charge of their own theatrical productions, complete with costumes, a working curtain, and an interactive soundboard, and House About It beckons youngsters over to pick up real drills and make boxes under careful supervision. Outside, a quiet garden offers visitors a place to wind down, and the Sea Of Boats gives life to nautical fantasies on a springy, outdoor play area that cushions inadvertent falls.

Groupon Guide

Rockaway! is a summer-long art exhibit celebrating the reopening of Fort Tilden, which was closed for two years after damage from Hurricane Sandy. Put on through a collaboration with the Museum of Modern Art’s contemporary museum, PS1, and local artist and community groups, the show’s big draw is a large exhibit by musician, writer, artist, and Rockaway resident Patti Smith. But there’s a lot more to explore there, especially when combined with a beach day. Follow our guide to navigating the historic site and the accompanying exhibit, whose works center around the connection between place, objects, and memory.
The Chapel
Walk into Fort Tilden, and the first exhibit area you’ll see is an old white building—the restored Fort Tilden chapel. Janet Cardiff’s The Forty Piece Motet takes over the bare and musty space with 40 speakers, each of which amplifies the voice of one singer performing their part of a complicated 16th-century choral piece. Walking among the speakers offers endless ways to hear the song; it felt personal and almost wrong to be walking among them, like sidling up to a chorister in the middle of a performance. The surround-sound effect feels even more intense when you look out the windows toward the peaceful beach. At the chapel, grab a brochure (with a handy map inside) and rely on volunteers to direct you to the other exhibits.
Rockaway Artists Alliance Gallery
A few hundred feet to the west, you can see what looks like an abandoned factory overgrown with scrubby trees. This houses the next exhibit, which you enter by going through the Rockaway Artists Alliance Gallery. The community nonprofit group’s gallery hosts Patti Smith’s photographs, which are a lifelong catalog of the objects and places dear to her: ex-lover and close friend Robert Mapplethorpe’s grave, Frida Kahlo’s corset, her own work boots.
The photos are all shot on film in black and white, adding a layer of ghostliness to the surviving objects of dead people. Smith isn’t the best photographer, but it’s interesting to see a curated selection of a woman who seems to have traveled everywhere. Try to nab one of the scarce gallery guides at the front desk because, like the entire Rockaway! exhibit, signage is rare here but would be useful.
(Skip the attached exhibit honoring Walt Whitman, which is stingy: a few unexplained relics in a display box, a dozen tattered copies of his books, a forgettable movie. You probably remember more about him from high school than you’ll learn here.)
The Resilience of the Dreamer
Across a small garden path is an old auto garage housing Smith’s installation, The Resilience of the Dreamer. A gilded four-poster bed, draped with white linens hanging from the high ceilings and lit by punched-out skylights, looks like a dream or a ghost. It's also a reminder that, despite its upbeat exclamation point, all of Rockaway! sprang from the traumas of Hurricane Sandy. Smith based Resilience on beds she saw washed ashore after the disaster.
Around Fort Tilden
Sprinkled throughout the grounds, a careful eye will catch a few of the little birds’ nests created by Adrián Villar Rojas. The low, slouching bowls are very difficult to find, looking for all the world like real nests—a small offering of home for a community where many were left homeless just two years ago. Granite blocks Smith inscribed with fragments of poems by Whitman stand along the shore road of Fort Tilden, almost at the western edge and close to the beach. We recommend taking a break in the sand before heading back to the bus stop and jumping on the Q22 bus, which will drop you off two blocks from the Rockaway Beach Surf Club.
Rockaway Beach Surf Club
The exhibit at the surf club features artwork by locals and notable artists, though no piece really stands out on its own. Granted, the large shack that makes up the surf club seems dim compared to the distracting, sun-drenched patio right outside. Grab a drink (cans of PBR are $3, a dark and stormy is $9) and take note of a few pieces of art before you run outside:
Above the ATM is Camille Henrot’s Tropics of Love, a grid of nine tawdry and tender portraits of half-animals, half-humans coupled up.
To the right of the bathrooms is Allyson Vieira’s Aphrodite I, a delicate ink drawing of an octopus that shows the artist’s very light and precise hand.
Tom Sachs’s Tides at Rockaway Beach is the largest piece on the wall to the left as you walk in. At first, Sachs’s work looks like a schedule of upcoming tides, but looking more closely, it’s clear this is actually a schedule of deaths, listing men’s and women’s life expectancy against their age today. In short, Sachs’s work tells you how much longer you’re statistically likely to live. The subject matter is creepy, even though its handmade, graffiti-esque aesthetic fits right in with this local bar.
Now, step out into the sun. Out back, surfers stash their boards in lockers, locals talk shop in flip-flops, and pilgrims from Manhattan let loose. A new Southern-style food truck sells meaty sandwiches (with one vegan option) and killer sweet-potato fries. Enjoy this last phase of your visit to the Rockaways—from there, it’s a half-block walk to the subway and back to reality.
Rockaway! at a Glance
When to go: Open and free to the public Thursday–Sunday from noon to 6 p.m. until September 1.
The Rockaway Beach Surf Club exhibit is also open to the public free of charge Monday–Friday from noon to midnight and Saturday–Sunday from 11 a.m. to midnight. The Forty Piece Motet by Janet Cardiff will only be open through Sunday, August 17.
How to get there: Take the 5 or 2 to the last stop in Brooklyn, Flatbush Ave./ Brooklyn College, and walk a block to the intersection of Flatbush Avenue and Avenue H, in front of Target. From there, catch the Q35 bus toward the Rockaways, getting off at the first stop after crossing the Marine Parkway Bridge.
What to bring: At Fort Tilden, water and food are scarce but surf and sand are plenty, so pack a towel, swimsuit, sunblock, water, and snacks.
Photos by Kasia Mychajlowycz.